1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to metallic chips recycling, particularly, titanium alloys metal chips, and more particularly to forming billets that can then be used for producing consumable electrodes for obtaining secondary casting alloys, in blacksmith's work for obtaining forgings, extruded semi-finished products and the like.
2. Description of Related Art
The most commonly known, (about 45% of the total amount of waste products of the titanium industry), and the most difficult to be recycled, sort of waste products in the metals industry is chip scrap. The difficulty of preparation of chip scrap for recycling consists in it's great volume, contamination with emulsion, machining oil contamination, contamination by foreign particles of other alloys, etc. At the present time, in Russia only a minor amount of chip scrap waste products is recycled, mainly in the metallurgy industry, the remaining chip scrap waste resulting in adverse environmental impacts with no accompanying economic benefits.
One current method (1. Abramova K. B. and others. Briquetting of titanium chip scrap under the influence of electric current sharp pulses, “Tsvetnye metally”, 1998, No. 12, p. 70–74) for forming billets comprises cleaning of the titanium chip scrap, further briquetting by cold molding with simultaneous influence of electric current sharp pulses, which provide partial diffusion welding of individual chip scrap elements. By this method, briquettes with relative density up to 0.45 of alloy density are obtained. The disadvantage of said method is low density of chip scrap briquettes and considerable power intensity of the process.
In another current method for producing strained billets in the form of consumable electrodes from titanium alloys (2. Patent RF No. 2114925, C22B 9/20, H05B 7/06, 1998.) bulk scrap waste products, the waste products are stowed into the capsule with end plates (templates), which is charged into appropriate configuration container, and further axial force is applied to the end plates with simultaneous electric current passing through them and the layer of waste products to provide diffusion welding in bulk scrap waste products contact zone among them. This method has the following disadvantages: manufacturing the capsule of the same name with waste products titanium alloy, considerable power intensity of the process, and low density of obtained billets, which does not exceed 60% of base metal density.
A current device for pressing billets for consumable electrodes (3. Patent RF No. 2148665, C22B 9/20, H05B 7/07, 2000), preferably from chip scrap and shear cuttings, comprises a container mounted on the basis, a mould placed in it, principal press-washer fixed on a compression ram and an autonomous press-washer. This device is deficient in that, under conditions of hot deformation of titanium chip scrap briquettes, which are placed into shielded arc (cyn. gas protection) capsule, its covering corrugates because of friction between the surfaces of the mould and capsule.